He twisted the cogs of the port, set the vibra-ray so that no one else could open the door unless he was along. He slipped a bit on the mud of the clearing, turned, slammed the port shut. Then, with a super ati-gun in his right hand, he started across the clearing toward the break in the jungle that was obviously a path cut by the Lanka hunters.
It was then that he halted, his eyes widening in surprise, the sound of his breathing loud in his oxy-helmet. He swung in a complete circle, stifling his gasp of wonder, feeling the fear knotting in his stomach, and conscious of the scaly fingers of insanity plucking at his reason.
For men moved about the rendering hut, and steam spurted from the tall stacks.
Don Denton half-crouched, and a soundless snarl of amazement twisted his lips. His eyes flashed from the working men around the clearing, blinked bewilderedly at what they saw.
Or, rather, what they didn't see.
For the freighters were gone, vanished from where they had been, only deep gouges in the ground to show that they had ever landed.
III
Don Denton swore soundlessly to himself, and the gun sagged momentarily in his hand. He felt the insane desire to laugh, fought down the feeling with an iron will.
This was too much; this was carrying things too far. Those men moving about the rendering shed were dead, so dead that there had been no pulse of heart-beats in their veins. Yet they walked and worked with a smooth efficiency about the shed five hundred feet away.